Electrical load protection devices are electrically interposed between electrical load equipment and electrical source equipment and are designed to protect the load equipment from exceptionable characteristics of electricity received from the source equipment. One type of electrical load protection device is the surge suppressor, which is used to prevent voltage surges from reaching the load equipment. As used herein, a power or voltage surge, or simply “surge,” is a transient overvoltage condition of short duration, e.g., 20-50 μs. Traditional surge suppression techniques include shunting mode suppression, by which surge power is shunted to a neutral or ground conductor. Examples of such shunting techniques are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,136,455 dated Aug. 4, 1992 and entitled, “Electromagnetic Interference Suppression Device,” and U.S. Reissue Pat. RE39,446 dated Dec. 26, 2006 and entitled, “Power Filter Circuit Responsive to Supply System Fault Conditions.” Another surge suppression technique is series mode suppression, by which surge power is series limited and canceled, and may be further ameliorated by shunt absorption. Examples of series mode suppression techniques are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,728,089 dated Apr. 27, 2007 and entitled, “Surge Suppressor for Wide Range of Input Voltages,” U.S. Pat. No. 6,744,613 dated Jun. 1, 2004 and entitled, “System and Method for Filtering Multiple Adverse Characteristics from a Power Supply Source,” U.S. Pat. No. 7,184,252 dated Feb. 27, 2007 and entitled, “Surge Protector with Input Transformer,” and U.S. Pat. No. 7,511,934 dated Mar. 31, 2009 and entitled, “System and Method for Conditioning a Power Supply Transmission for Supply to a Load Circuit.”
Shunt mode suppression typically carries the lowest cost and is the smallest size option, but it allows exposure of connected load equipment to fairly high amplitude residual voltages. The cost of implementing series mode suppression is typically higher than that of shunt mode suppressors and they are usually larger in size. However, series mode suppressors are capable of limiting exposure to surge voltages at the load to much lower levels, e.g., to within ±10% of the nominal AC line voltage envelope. One drawback common to both of these technologies is that neither provides adequate mitigation of persistent AC overvoltage, referred to herein by as a “swell.” Efforts to develop and/or improve mitigation techniques for both voltage surges and voltage swells, among other undesirable power conditions, are ongoing.